


Spinning in Circles

by tonight_aliv (estir)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Ice Skating Date, Secret Crush, Told in Past and Present Simultaneously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estir/pseuds/tonight_aliv
Summary: The buildings were much less impressive here on the outer edges of Heartland, covered in rust and dirt and grime. Cathy had asked more than once when they would arrive, her anxiety steadily returning as she tugged at her black dress.Each time she had been answered with an equally impatient, “It’s just down this street; I promise we’re almost there.”





	Spinning in Circles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the **ZeXal Secret Santa 2013 exchange** for tumblr user phoenixedo. I'm migrating a few of my old fanfics off of Tumblr.

“D-Gazer, set!” the two shouted in unison as they adjusted their eyepieces.

_Kotori had approached her after gym class, something that wasn’t entirely unusual. But the green-haired girl was fidgeting with her school uniform when Cathy looked up at her, not really expecting her friend (and “friend” might even be a stretch) to be so nervous. It was an uncommon emotion for Kotori, and it threw Cathy off._

“Duel disk, set!” Their customized disks sprang to life, and the slight force pushed both away from the center of the rink by a margin. Cathy stood tall, having expected it, but her opponent slipped a bit on her back foot before regaining her composure.

_“It’s just that,” she quickly said before Cathy could respond to the request, “I’ve been trying to practice, and Rio-san suggested I try multitasking with it. I have an extra pair you could borrow, since no one ‘rinks anymore, and I want to get better at it before I ask—”_

_“I’ll do it,” Cathy interrupted before the girl could ramble her way into a deeper hole, “I’d be glad to, and in a-nyan-y case, it sounds like fun!”_

It had taken a second longer for the hologram system to take into account their movements, but the moment the abandoned building around them lit up with the colorful scan and the robotic voice declared that the AR Vision link had been established, neither hesitated to draw their five cards .

“Duel!”

_That Sunday the two had met at the rail, Cathy at a loss for what to bring, especially when she spotted Kotori’s duffle bag. They had exchanged an awkward wave under cloudy skies, their breaths clouding before their faces as they exchanged terse pleasantries in the biting winter air. Cathy regretted agreeing to the trip the moment she bought her ticket to the outskirts of Heartland, right near the wall, and had trouble convincing herself to stay with the plan during the trip._

_But the moment Kotori elbowed her in the side, silently asking about her jumpy state, Cathy couldn’t help but force out a chuckle. There was no way she was going to be anxious of anything that Kotori wasn’t anxious about._

_So she stood taller, even as the amount of passengers thinned, and prided herself in her resilience._

“I’ll go first,” Cathy shouted to her opposite, gliding easily on one blade as she drew the first card in her deck. Confirming which one it was with a quick glance, she tucked it into her right palm and plucked a monster out of her hand cards. With another yell, she summoned one of her Cat Girls and set two cards: Cat Confusion and Catnip Turbine, even though Turbine was more of a bluff than anything else.

She ended her turn with that, certain that even if Kotori managed to summon something with an ATK of more than Cat Girl’s 1200 ATK, the beginner wouldn’t get past the Cat Confusion trap, which would return the monster to Kotori’s hand, wasting her normal summon for that turn.

Placing another blade on the rink as Kotori drew her next card, Cathy wondered if she could land one of those jumps.

“First, I activate the spell card, Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen,” Kotori brought Cathy’s attention back to the duel suddenly, “It lets me special summon a Fairy type from my hand.”

Cathy clicked her tongue, not having expected a special summon in the first turn as Kotori played her Little Fairy in attack positon (800ATK). As the tiny monster came to life in the center of the rink, easily following Kotori’s uneven movements. The gray-haired girl braced herself for Kotori’s normal summon, poised to activate either of her set cards.

_They had walked a few blocks from the rail by now. The buildings were much less impressive here on the outer edges of Heartland, covered in rust and dirt and grime. Cathy had asked more than once when they would arrive, her anxiety steadily returning as she tugged at her black dress._

_Each time she had been answered with an equally impatient, “It’s just down this street; I promise we’re almost there.”_

“I then normal summon Sacred Crane,” Kotori declared as the bright blue bird appeared on the field, and Cathy smirked at its 1600 ATK. That bluff card would come in handy after all.

_She had stopped before a chained gate, weathered and warped from many years of abandonment. Cathy flinched back slightly when Kotori threw her duffle bag over the chain-link fence, not having expected the hard plastic clash that it had landed with. Maybe she should have offered to carry her own—_

_Before she could continue the thought, Kotori had turned back to her, an apologetic smile alight in her eyes, “I’m sorry it’s a bit abandoned, but like I said before, it’s the only place I know.”_

_She was looking for some sort of response from Cathy, some sort of forgiveness for dragging the cat-girl into this, and for a few breaths of icy air, she received none._

_And when she noticed the silence, not fully realizing that she had also been staring at Kotori, she attempted a smile, saying, “I’m not afraid of abandoned buildings. I’m just worried for you.”_

_Kotori laughed sharply before turning toward a sizable hole in the fence, “Okay, okay.”_

Kotori was taking her time, debating between the monsters on her field and another card in her hand, and Cathy’s patience was waning, waiting for the other to declare an attack already.

“I—” she hesitated, ghosting her fingers over one card in her hand.

Cathy snapped, “Just make a move already!”

Light brown eyes snapped back to Cathy, wide and startled, before her left foot somehow misplaced itself on the glazed wood floor and she tripped, almost in slow motion. Her three hand cards flew into the air as she tumbled down onto the floor, pink duel disk clattering on the ground before everything else, her body continuing to slide a bit with her momentum.

Cathy hesitated a moment, waiting for Kotori to collect herself off the floor before laughing the incident off, but as she continued to skate around toward her, Kotori did not move except to curl in on herself slightly. And as she closed in on the fallen girl, Cathy suddenly realized that she didn’t know how to properly stop these rubber inline skates.

With a yelp as she neared Kotori, Cathy intentionally fell on her side at the last second, falling to the floor and sliding into Kotori’s back. Her black and white stockings were ripped now, and her shoulder had probably felt the worst of that fall, but she jumped up nonetheless, scooting her way over to look at Kotori properly.

_“You know, I’ve never really done this before.”_

_Kotori looked back at her from the lower riser, pausing in her deft movements across the straps and laces of her own heavy skates, “You mean skating, or dueling while skating?”_

_Cathy just lowered her head to gaze at her incredulously over the dark frames of her glasses, which made Kotori smile again, for some reason._

_“It’s not that hard. I’ll show you how.”_

“Are you okay?” she almost screamed, trying to bring Kotori off the floor by the shoulders, but only succeeding in turning the girl onto her back. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide in fear as her hands stiffly rose to her neck.

Cathy recognized the movements instantly, having suffered similar. “Just calm down. Calm down, and you’ll be able to breathe again. You just had the wind knocked out of you, geez.”

_Cathy was getting the hang of it, skating laps around Kotori with ease. And although it made her sneeze, she was somewhat glad for the dust in the air, scattering some light from the broken ceiling this way and that. Before long she was breathless and flushed from the cold, distracting herself with what she could do in these rubber inlines: jumps, kicks, twirls, spins—_

_“Thank you for coming with me,” Kotori said suddenly, filling the building with every excited syllable._

_Cathy smiled back, letting her momentum run out as she approached the girl in the center of the rink._

_“Don’t thank me yet. We still have to duel, after all.”_


End file.
